Blog predominately devoted to Sewing, with little dashes of family and work life thrown in for context and variety.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

One less UFO

We had a great vacation. I missed my sewing and getting back into the work routine was tough. I did get in some sewing the last week. I made the stripped skirt from the Threads article published in May 2005. http://www.taunton.com/threads/pages/th_120_029.asp I have wanted to make this skirt since the issue was published. I had a lot of scraps leftover from my SWAP blouses, as well as several coordinating silk chiffon's and crepes that failed their SWAP auditions. Since I am horrible about putting fabric away, they were stacked together on a table and the colors looked so inspiring . The fabrics were in front of me, it was a good way to use up scraps, so I went for it. If I had thought about the fact that piecing the fabric as the first step of the process would increase the time to make a skirt, I probably wouldn’t have made it. Sometimes practicality stops my creative processes dead. I have to consciously make an effort not to over think or over plan the process or practicality issues, such as not enough time or missing notions or just the right fabric, will stop my creative process dead in its tracks. My review can be read at http://www.patternreview.com/http://sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/readreview.pl?readreview=1&ID=20149.

On a more somber note, on Friday I wore pieces of my SWAP to show support for Va Tech in the aftermath of the shooting. My SWAP colors included the Tech colors, burgundy and orange.

Remember my previous posting on UFO’s and Pigs. I actually have completed several of the UFO’s. The most recent was using the pieced silk tie scrap yardage to make a jacket. I got the scraps from the Talbott’s men’s wear factory, located somewhere in Calif. They used to sell scrap bags via ads in Threads magazine. The striped scraps were the most conservative scraps in the bag. The silk jacquards were gorgeous and are still in my stash. I would love to know if you could still buy these scrap bags from the factory. Anyway I found an old Easy Burda jacket pattern that had some shaping, but it was all through darts, which did not impact the pieced fabric too much. I made the bands in coordinating silk organza, and in hindsight this feature of the pattern was fortuitous. The way the fabric was pieced, all the edges, sleeves hems, etc. were bias. The straight cut bands help keep the edges from stretching out. The organza was a sheer curtain panel purchased at Target. Hint: check out the curtains and tablecloths at stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Marshall’s Big Lots, and TJ Max for inexpensive (usually), unique yardage. Many of these stores carry curtain panels of silk, organza, raw silk and dupianni, and silk/poly blends. Look in the clearance area at Marshall’s and TJ Max. I have seen Walmart brand curtain panels in Family Dollar Store, at really low prices

Both the skirt and jacket are a little non-traditional or "artsy". But I can wear them next week while attending the AQS quilt show in Paducah, Kentucky. My mom and I are taking a road trip, We had originally signed up for a bus trip, but it got canceled. Mom was so upset and disappointed. My father has turned into a big homebody in his retirement, and refuses to travel. She, on the other had loves to go places. So I told her we would drive. It’s a two day drive one way, but multiple people have told me, it is very scenic. Subtext: hilly and be sure and keep your gas tank full for the long non-populated stretches. It should be an adventure in many ways.

I will post the requested info on working with chiffon in a post when I get back from the Quilt show trip.